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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE BEST LIFE 



Hn Bbfcress 



BY 



CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING, D.D., LL.D. 

President of Western Reserve University, 
Cleveland 



New York : 46 East 14TH Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

Boston: 100 Purchase Street 

2nd COPY, 
1898. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




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cA^ 



6223 



Copyright, 1898, 
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 



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C. J. Petees & Son, Ttpogeaphees, 
Boston. 



THE BEST LIFE. 



The best life. What is it? 

My first answer is : It is the life of truth, 
the life that is spent in searching for, in hold- 
ing, and in expressing, the truth. To inquire, 
to know, to tell : these are three phases or 
functions of our relation to what we call truth. 
The first command of the Bible is, "Let there 
be light ; " and the first commendation of the 
Bible is, " And God saw the light, that it was 
good." Among the last declarations of the 
Apocalypse is that of the blessing that "And 
there shall be no night there," "for the Lord 
God giveth them light." Man's first appetite 
is for light, and there is no surer sign of dy- 
ing than the coming of the twilight. 

The mind of man is fitted for truth, and 
truth is fitted for the mind of man. The 
truth — I mean knowledge of things as they 
3 



4 THE BEST LIFE. 

are; I mean all things — things that appeal to 
the sense, things that we touch, things that 
we see, things whose voices we hear. The 
truth, — I mean the chemist's knowledge, 
whether it be of the laboratory or the kitchen. 
The truth, — I mean the physicist's knowledge, 
whether it be of the laboratory or of the 
machine-shop. The truth, — I mean the biol- 
ogist's knowledge, whether of the laboratory 
or of the garden. Sensual truth, I mean; but 
I also mean supersensual truth. Truth, — the 
vision which the architect sees before sod is 
turned; his structure poised in mid-air, calm, 
self-contained, serving its purpose. Truth, — 
the picture which the artist sees with eyes 
shut, and which transfers itself to canvas. 
Truth, — the sweet and saintly, the mighty and 
majestic face, which the sculptor knows is bur- 
ied up in the marble, and which he must re- 
lease from its stony prison. Truth, — the song 
which the ear of the composer hears, beating 
its notes of harmony and of melody, memories 
as of some life lived long ago, and in some 



THE BEST LIFE. 5 

other clime, and which must write themselves 
out in the score. Truth, — the poem which is 
singing itself in the brain and heart, soft and 
low, tumultuous as the epic or sobbing as the 
threnody, which for the hour makes the poet 
inspired. Truth, — the vision of the past, the 
noble army of martyrs, the procession of the 
ages, the widening of man's thoughts, the glo- 
ries and the shames, the exultations and the 
pangs; the historian's truth, making one mas- 
ter of all that man has achieved or aspired 
after. Truth must be an element of the best 
life. It is not without significance that God 
is called Omniscience, and the devil the father 
of lies. Bishop Butler once said that he pro- 
posed to make the pursuit of truth his busi- 
ness. This same pursuit must be the business 
of any life that proposes unto itself to be the 
best. Truth is fundamental. 

In the best life is also love, — love given 
and love received. Tucked away in the life 
of Dean Burgon is a letter of Bishop Hob- 
house, who tells a story that was told to him 



6 THE BEST LIEE. 

about that unique personality who goes into 
history as Dean Burgon. The narrator says : 

M One day I looked up at yonder hill, and 
I saw Mr. B. at the top of it. with his hands 
over his head, a-waving his hat. He then 
spread out his arms as if he were clasping 
something to his breast. He ran down the 
hill, and began visiting from door to door. 
When he came to my house, I asked him, 
1 What were you doing on the hill, waving your 
hands, spreading out your arms, and hugging 
them to your heart ? ' — • Oh. I was just em- 
bracing you all. glad to rind myself among 
you. I love you so much.' " l 

That is an emblem of the best life. — the 
man of truth on the hill-top. against the sky. 
between earth and heaven, embracing the peo- 
ple whom he loves and who love him. Love is 
spiritual gravitation. As material gravitation 
acts the stronger on larger and through larger 
bodies, so spiritual gravitation loves that which 
is more the more, and that which is most the 

i u Life of Dean Burgon," abridged, vol. i., p. 165. 



THE BEST LIFE. 7 

most. But, unlike material gravitation, it rec- 
ognizes no distances. It is love outpouring, out- 
giving, spending, sacrificing, just loving. For, 
as Emerson says, " The superiority that has no 
superior, the redeemer and instructor of souls, 
as it is their primal essence, is love." 1 And as 
Mrs. Browning, voicing the same thought in the 
closing lines of a sonnet, sings : — 

"For life in perfect whole 
And aim consummated is Love in sooth, 
As nature's magnet-heat rounds pole with pole." 

That love is God and that God is love we 
are coming to understand better and better. 
Philosophy has for more than two thousand 
years been searching for its god. Plato found 
it in his supreme ideal or idea. This century 
has been searching for it as never before has 
any age searched for a god. Fichte found his 
god in the u ego." Schelling found his god in 
his system of correspondence. Hegel found his 
god in pure being. Schopenhauer found his god 
in the absolute will. Von Hartmann found 

rs," II. 431, 



8 THE BEST LIFE. 

his god in the unconscious. And each of these 
found, indeed, one side of God. God is the 
ideal, the perfect. God is the universal " ego." 
God makes himself known in the orders and 
gradations of existence. God is pure being. 
God is a force, a will. God we may consider 
as the unconscious in certain relations. But 
this God who is all these elements is also, 
comprehending all, the God of love. Love is 
the supreme ideal, love is personal, love is 
comprehensive, love is force, love is energy, 
love so goes out into other lives that it may 
be said to be forgetful of itself. Love is the 
Absolute. Love is God. 

The best life is truth and love. Life with 
truth but without love may be splendid, ar- 
ticulate, magnificent, iniqhtv, but it is mon- 
strous — a Frankenstein. Life with love but 
without truth may be tender, peaceful, high 
in purpose, rihht in desire, noble, but it is 
misguided, unstable, unjust. 

Love united with truth provides a new mo- 
tive for all life. It adds power to life ; it gives 



THE BEST LIFE. 9 

to life buoyancy, spring, and movement. Love 
gives a new light. The heart clarifies the in- 
tellect. Love preaches a gospel of universal 
brotherhood without preaching communism. 
Love preaches a gospel of self-sacrifice without 
preaching annihilation. Love preaches opti- 
mism, the gospel of hope. Love never whis- 
pers a syllable of pessimism, the gospel of 
despair. Love joined with truth assures men 
that God dwells in them and about them; 
love convinces men that this world is God's, 
not the devil's, world; love whispers that the 
eternal spirit is working in and for man, that 
humanity represents the constant striving of 
God toward a reincarnation ; love proves that 
conscience and reason in each man are to be 
united, and that the revelations of conscience 
and reason in man are the revelations of God's 
truth; love declares that the human need of 
forgiveness is filled by the divine pardon, that 
all worthy sacrifice consists in the yielding of 
the human will to the divine, and that perfect 
freedom is perfect obedience to perfect law. 



10 THE BEST LIFE. 

Truth and love represent the mind that knows 
and the heart that loves. Such a life soars 
like the eagle, but, unlike the eagle, never de- 
stroys. It sings like the nightingale, but, un- 
like the nightingale, it needs no darkness for 
its expression. I am sure you may have 
thought that in the best life there must be 
beauty, and so there must be ; but the beauty 
of the best life is the beauty of truth and of 
love. Can you think of a life possessing beauty 
higher, richer, nobler, more entrancing than 
the life which is founded in truth, and which 
aspires unto the skyey heights of love ? 

The preacher would call this best life of truth 
and of love Heaven. For is it not said that in 
that supersensual state "Shall I know even as 
also I am known"? And is not heaven where 
God is, and is not God love ? And the worst 
life, is it not error, ignorance, blindness? is it 
not hate ? The preacher would call it Hell. Is 
it not the outer darkness ? and is it not sym- 
bolized rather by the wailing and gnashing of 
teeth than by the kiss of love ? 



THE BEST LIFE. 11 

Between the best life of knowing and of lov- 
ing, and the worst, of not knowing and of hat- 
ing, is another life, which consists in having, — 
in having fame, in having wealth, in having 
power of any kind. Yes, there is a life of 
having, which, with its manifold content, is 
precious ; but can it be for one instant weighed 
in the same scale with this life which we call 
the life of truth and of love? 

This best life of truth and of love is a life 
lived at once under law and in liberty. It 
recognizes the canons for searching, finding, 
holding, expressing, the truth. It does not 
forget that these laws are the laws of justice, 
order, courage, humility, reverence. It also 
recognizes the great condition of liberty. Each 
soul is to be obedient to itself, true to the still 
small voice within, heeding the tiny monitions as 
if they were thunders. It is a life, not of rash- 
ness, but of prudence ; not of disorder, but of 
respect for fitnesses ; not of undue meltings, of 
either laughter or tears, but of self-restraint. It 
is a life of self-sacrifice, but also of self-respect; 



12 THE BEST LIFE. 

of self-respect, but also of sacrifice, of egoism 
and of altruism, of humanity and of divinity. 

This life is what Mr. Matthew Arnold would 
call "perfection." It is the life which he has 
described essentially as " sweetness and light." 
Sweetness is love, light is truth. It is a life of 
and in culture. It is a life of the spirit. It 
belongs to those realities which are, if found in 
time and space, yet not of time and space. And 
it relates to those truths which "eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man," but which in some form man sees 
in sweet and saintly lives, which he hears in the 
stories of sweet and saintly deeds, and which he 
finds in the hearts of the sweetest and saintliest. 

I pause to say it is a source of profound- 
est joy that the life of the teacher and student 
is, above every other life, a life of truth and 
of love. Truth ! Is not that the student's 
quest ? Truth ! Is not that the teacher's 
message ? Love, too, is the mood, the will, of 
the teacher as he speaks to the receptive soul, 
and of the student as he receives the message 



THE BEST LIFE. 13 

from the inspired messenger. Truth is the 
teacher's calling; love, the student's vocation. 
This life unites the inspiration of the prophet 
and the vision of the priest. It calls forth the 
exultation of the poet, the insight of the artist, 
and those capacities for inspiring and for being 
inspired which belong to the radiant and mighty 
souls who bring light out of the night. 

The avenues leading to this best life of truth 
and of love are not difficult of approach. One 
of them I shall call by the name of personality. 

Personality is what one is. It is one's entire 
being. It is reason and feeling and conscience 
and will. Personality stands apart from its 
attributes ; it is distinct from activities and 
from the results of activity. Its might is 
the might of its constituent elements. Its force 
is the force of reason. For its worth consists 
in the mighty grasp of truth. Its vigor is the 
sense of reality. Its strength is the strength 
of the heart. For great lovers are great per- 
sonalities. Its energy is the energy of the 
conscience, the insight into moral relations, 



14 THE BEST LIFE. 

the impulse to do the right and to avoid the 
wrong, the approval for the right done. In- 
sight, impulse, approval, are mighty in a great 
personality. Its power is the power of the 
will. Given a large, strong, persistent choice, 
and you have a strong, large, lasting person- 
ality. Personality is the greatest power in life. 
On general grounds one would expect that 
personality would be a great power in life ; 
for personality represents the splendid crown 
of all the creative, preservative, and develop- 
ing processes. To compare its brilliancy, its 
creative power, its being, to star or sun, is 
to debase its nature, so brilliant, so creative, 
so powerful is it. It stands last in the period 
of Genesis ; it gives name to all the preceding 
creations. It stands last in the Book of Reve- 
lation ; its blessing is the last blessing pro- 
nounced. It represents God in the earth. 

The best life to which personality leads comes 
forth from the best life. To the student search- 
ing for the best life, I say live with those who 
live the life of truth and of love. " Similia 



THE BEST LIFE. 15 

similibus creantur" Personality is a great 
power. Great men make great men; small, 
small. Some months ago I asked several of 
the wisest men in America, "What was the 
best thing your college did for you?" An- 
swer after answer came back, " The great men 
who taught me." "Mark Hopkins," said one; 
" Julius H. Seelye," said another. The teach- 
ings may be forgotten, the teachers never. 

The great actors in American affairs have 
usually been great personalities. We are now 
closing the first century of our national life. 
Call over the roll of the great men in law 
and jurisprudence, Marshall and Jay and David 
Dudley Field ; in government, Washington and 
Lincoln ; in romance, Hawthorne and Cooper ; 
in poetry, Lowell and Longfellow ; in preach- 
ing, Brooks and Beecher ; in statesmanship, 
Webster; in finance, Gallatin and Chase; in 
history, Prescott and Parkman and Motley and 
Bancroft ; in science, Agassiz and Gray and 
Henry and Dana; in diplomacy, the Adamses 
and Jefferson ; in architecture, Richardson ; in 



16 THE BEST LIFE. 

painting, Hunt and Copley and Inness ; in 
journalism, Greeley; in reformation, Garrison 
and his associates. They are all great men. 
Beneath and before the artist, the statesman, 
the scholar, is the man. Great personalities 
constitute great doers. But what is to my 
point now is great personalities make great 
personalities ; best personalities make best per- 
sonalities ; truth, truth ; love, love. The 
power of even one personality in leading to the 
best life is simply magnificent. Socrates left 
no writings, he left a Plato. Christ left no 
writings, he left a Saint John. The two men 
who have most deeply moved modern Ox- 
ford are Benjamin Jowett and T. H. Green. 
Greater scholars than either there have been, 
but no greater personalities. The regard which 
certain minds have felt for them has become 
almost religious. The American college is a 
power in scholarship; it establishes great li- 
braries; it equips noble laboratories; it enrolls 
great scholars. But the American college is 
also a power in forming great personalities. 



TEE BEST LIFE. 17 

It therefore must have great personalities as 
its members. If one were obliged to choose 
between, on the one hand, a great scholar and 
a small personality, and, on the other hand, 
between a great personality and the mean 
scholar, of course the decision would be in 
favor of the great man. But the narrowness 
of choice is seldom or never imposed; for, of 
course, a great personality tends to create a 
great scholar, and great scholarship tends to 
create a great personality. A single man, a 
personality of truth and of love, may create 
the best life in hundreds of souls. This power 
of personality to create the best personality is 
what Browning is forever trying to tell us, the 
blind readers of his blind books. It is, I sup- 
pose also, the truth which lies at the basis of 
Sir Richard Steele's remark made in respect 
to Lady Elizabeth Hastings, "to love her was 
a liberal education." That intimacy of com- 
panionship which love represents gave to life 
breadth and depth and height, so broad and 
high and deep was her own nature. 



18 THE BEiT LIFE. 

If a method of entering into this best life 
of truth and of life lies through a vital rela- 
tionship with a single great personality, a sec- 
ond method may be found in a vital association 
with a still greater personality, which is human- 
ity itself. Humanity is the greatest of all 
conditions : therefore, let one enter into human- 
ity and possess it. and let humanity enter into 
one's self. I notice that the men whom we most 
admire are usually most human. Mankind 
likes to make its heroes by the divine method 
of creation, — in its own image. This human- 
ity may emerge in an intense sympathy with 
the religious problems of the time, as in Ten- 
nyson : the humanity may be manifested in 
an appreciation of the ethical problems of one's 
age, as in Browning ; the humanity may be 
displayed in a large fellowship with the higher 
forms of the intellectual life of its period, as 
in Lowell ; the humanity may show itself in a 
deep feeling with the common difficulties of 
our common life, as in the gentle Quaker poet. 

No matter in what form of application hu- 



THE BEST LIFE. 19 

inanity meets humanity, it is still true that a 
man, in order to reach the best life, must 
struggle up to it through knowing and feel- 
ing with humanity itself. The lives that are 
the best lives are, in the equality of all in- 
terests, the lives which are lived most closely 
and vitally with men. It is therefore neces- 
sary to put one's self into the closest relations 
with humanity. Life is measured by the va- 
riety and intensity of its relations. If, there- 
fore, life is to be the best life, it must be 
varied and intense. All that interests human- 
ity should interest each member of humanity. 
Be a pessimist, if one must be, — believe it to 
be true, " Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong 
forever on the throne." Be a meliorist, if 
that seems wiser, — believe that things, on the 
whole, do tend toward goodness and better- 
ment. Be an optimist, if you see your way 
clear to that consummation, — believe that 
" Standeth God within the shadow, keeping 
watch above his own." But, at all events, 
you are to believe in humanity ; and if you 



20 THE BEST LITE. 

believe in humanity, you will find yourself 
becoming largely and magnificently human. 
For, going out into humanity, you will find 
humanity coming into you ; its truth you will 
know; its love you will possess and enjoy. 

The greatest and best of men are always 
humanitarians ; they have a genius for human- 
ity. Higher than the fame of their poems, or 
novels, or essays, or pictures, or wars, or ex- 
plorations, or inventions, or battles, is their 
sheer, simple, and comprehensive manhood. It 
comes upon us almost as a surprise, meeting 
for the first time a distinguished author or ex- 
plorer, to find that his distinction is not the 
fundamental note in his character, but that the 
fundamental note is his sheer, abounding hu- 
manity. Such must be the case. Manhood is 
necessarily the key-note of the being of every 
great one. The best life must be a very hu- 
man life. " Waverley " keeps its place with 
the successive generations, — the delight of 
the boy, the satisfaction of the mature, — be- 
cause it is so comprehensively human. 



THE BEST LIFE. 21 

A third method of entrance to this best life 
of truth and love I shall denominate the method 
of objective personality, and by this I mean the 
book. For it is impossible for us to overesti- 
mate the book as the precious storehouse of the 
most precious things which each generation 
creates, and which it transmits to its successors. 
The book has come to be to us what the cathe- 
dral and the picture were to the Middle Ages. 
It embalms the noblest thought of the noblest 
spirits about the noblest things. " They — i.e., 
books — are," says Emerson, "the finest records 
of human wit ; " and they are, in that fine and 
familiar phrase of Milton, "the precious life- 
blood of a master spirit." Tnto them has been 
poured this life-blood, and they therefore give 
life to those who drink of them. " Parnassus," 
says Jean Paul Richter, "gives a wider pros- 
pect than the throne." Macaulay, in writing to 
a little girl, many years ago, said, " If anybody 
would make me the greatest king that ever 
lived, with palaces and gardens and fine din- 
ners, and wine and coaches, and beautiful 



■22 TEE EE-T LIEE. 

clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition 
that I would not read books. I would not be 
a king. I would rather be a poor man in a 
garret with plenty of books, than a king who 
did not love reading.* 

Of all classes of books which may help one 
into this life of truth and love, two are, to my 
thought, eminent, the biography and the poem. 
One of the conspicuous contributions of our 
fast-flying century to universal literature lies 
in its biographies. No century has seen the 
printing of so many great books about great 
men I: we are prevented in our narrow sta- 
tion from knowing personally great men while 
they are alive, we are privileged to know them 
after they are dead. On his first reading of 
Niebuhr's -History of Rome," Dr. Arnold said 
that "it opened wide before my eyes the extent 
of mv own ignorance." But a biography may 
jpen a soul unto itself, onto its possibilities, 
through the self-revelations of another soul. 

We all are holding our convictions at once 
i "Macanlay'fl Life and Letters." LT. 180. 



THE BEST LIFE. 23 

with greater loyalty and with greater tolera- 
tion because we have entered into the home 
and heart of England's great schoolmaster, led 
by the warm hand of Arthur Stanley. We are 
seeing visions of truth more clearly, and are 
finding greater strength in doing our duty, be- 
cause we have suffered and rejoiced with the 
mighty Brighton preacher introduced by the 
noble Brooke. Every man of us is more genial, 
more gentle, more humane, through a personal ac- 
quaintance with the great Whig historian, made 
through his nephew, Trevelyan. Truth has be- 
come dearer, its quest more glorious, its visions 
more sacred, for our being with him who prayed 
for "kindly light amid the encircling gloom." 

No books are so fragrant of holiest things, 
so suggestive of wide realms of richest truth, 
so preservative of the precious achievements of 
the past, so moving to the willing spirit, so 
gracious, so vocal with messages of the prophet 
and the song of the poet, so instructive as to 
the methods and ways of the noblest men, as 
the books which tell the story of the best 



24 THE BEST LIFE. 

English scholars and thinkers and writers of 
this century of ours. 

But the poem offers a method quite as ac- 
ceptable for entering into this richest life. 
The poem is the book of truth, and it is also 
the book of love. The poet is the seer. He 
looks into the inmost heart. Beneath the phe- 
nomenal he seeks the real, the essential. But 
he is also the lover. He cannot be the hater. 
Hatred, as a positive quality, and poetry are 
remote from each other. The poet is the 
lover of humanity ; he is the lover of nature. 
Of all the poems of the ancient world, the 
Greek tragedies lead one into this best life the 
most easily and deeply. For in these trage- 
dies the mysteries of existence, the shrink- 
ing yet bold, the bold yet shrinking, attempts 
at solving the awful riddles of our being, the 
dismay of man before the ineffable realities, 
the sadness and pathos, the endeavor of man 
to lift himself up to the highest communing 
with highest things, the peace of heart that be- 
longs to the soul obedient to itself and to the 



THE BEST LIFE. 25 

unknown powers, are found in these greatest 
dramas. They move the spirit into truth and 
love as no other literature of its kind of any 
age does move. The three poems which, of 
our own century, seem to me best fitted to 
lead men into this best life, which stir the 
deepest, which come to the lip and the heart 
in crises of being, which go down the deepest 
and up the highest in our whole character, 
are " Intimations of Immortality," " In Memo- 
riam," and the "Commemoration Ode." Who- 
ever translates these verses into his own heart's 
blood will know the best which this century 
can teach him about the truth, the essential 
truth which lives in man, and for which man 
lives and dies; and about love, love which is 
but another way of spelling life. 

" There is no frigate like a book 

To take us lands away; 
Nor any courser like a page 

Of prancing poetry. 
This traverse may the poorest take, 

Without oppress of toll. 
How frugal is the chariot 

That bears the human soul!" 



26 THE BEST LIFE. 

Another path leading to this best life I 
shall call spiritual communion with nature. 
In this dying century have arisen three great 
movements in respect to the relation of man 
to nature. There has been a growth in the 
poetic interpretation of nature. Of course, the 
poetic interpretation of nature has been not 
uncommon from the time when the author of 
the Book of Job reasoned, or when David sang. 
But in the progress of this century man has 
entered into the heart of nature. Above every 
one it is the hand of Wordsworth that has 
pointed out the way. In these hundred years 
we have come to intepret nature in a more 
diverse, more comprehensive, more vital, way 
than in any other period of human history. 
With this poetic interpretation has gone along 
a scientific interpretation. The first laboratories 
were built in the first years of the nineteenth 
century; the chemical were the earliest, and 
they were succeeded by the great physical lab- 
oratories, and these in turn by the biological. 
Following the scientific interpretation, as the 



THE BEST LIFE. 27 

scientific followed the poetic, has occurred what 
I may call the practical interpretation of na- 
ture, — the use of nature for the sake of the 
comfort, the happiness, and the improvement of 
man. This form of interpretation and applica- 
tion is represented largely in the park, the 
boulevard, the roadway. Going along with 
these three interpretations, — the poetic, scien- 
tific, practical, — is the spiritual interpretation. 
Man has come to put himself, a spiritual being, 
into relation with this being that we call Nature, 
thinking of her as a spiritual being. He has 
flung his own thought and imagination and soul 
into Nature herself. Irving, in the " Sketch 
Book," speaks of the moral quality of the 
English landscape. It is not a moral quality 
only which the devout soul attributes to the 
landscape, but a human, a spiritual quality as 
well. Nature takes us to her inmost heart, 
and we take Nature also to the very centre 
of our being. This spiritual communion with 
Nature is based in a peculiar degree, like the 
scientific, upon her absolute truthfulness. Na- 



28 THE BEST LIFE. 

ture speaks the truth. She is also beneficent 
and loving as well, provided only that you 
take her at her best, and work with her in 
her own way. Give yourself to her, and she 
gives herself to you. You will find in her 
what you most wish to find. You will find 
in her what you bring to her. Like makes 
and like finds like. Minister to her in hon- 
esty, and she will deal truly with thee ; cher- 
ish her in love, and she will reward thee. 
Her seas will sob in thy cryings, her winds 
chant dirges in thy sorrows, her skies drop 
tears in thy weepings, her clouds drift in 
darkness in thy doubt. Her suns shall rise in 
thy strength, her stars shine in thy nights, 
her zephyrs sing in thy happiness, her forests 
chant oratorios in thy worship, her whole be- 
ing throb in the progress of thy spirit. Know 
this world, commune with her varied moods, 
love her. She will give thyself to thee as a 
bride, and enrich thee. 

I now come to the fifth avenue of approach 
to this best life. It is the last in which I 



THE BEST LIFE. 29 

shall ask you to go with me. It is what I 
shall call the way of religion. "If your eye 
is on the eternal," says the great Emerson, 
"your intellect will grow, and your opinions 
and actions will have a beauty which no learn- 
ing or combined advantages of other men can 
rival." 1 Let us recur to our simple definition 
of the content of the best life. It is the life 
of truth and of love. The higher and the 
richer the truth, and the nobler and finer the 
love, the higher and the richer, the nobler and 
the finer, the consequent life. Religion has for 
the two points of its great ellipse truth and 
love. Its truths are the highest and the rich- 
est, and they are also the profoundest truths 
of the origin of things and of human duty. 
They are the highest truths of a divine Being, 
and of his relation to the creation. They are 
the widest truths, which are not confined to 
space or to time. Religion has to do, too, with 
love. Love is the fulfilling of its law. Love, 
the self-sacrifice of Buddha; love, the golden 

i " Essays," 11.431. 



THE BEST LIFE. 

rule of the Chinese sage : love, the principle 
of the religion of humanity : love, the 
sence of the Christian's God. — love is reli- 
gion. The religious man is the man of truth, 
highest and richest : of love, noblest and finest : 
he is the man who lives the best life. Beyond 
or above or below the theanthropic conceptions 
>i the Hebrew; beyond or above or below the 
specific doctrines of the Romanist: beyond or 
above or Mow the philosophies of the Cal- 
vinist: even beyond or above or below Chris- 
tianity itself, narrowly interpreted, — is religion, 
religion of truth and of love. Whoever is 
not religious misses the greatest motives and 
powers and ministries helping him to the best 
life. Whoever does not have the highest truth 
and feel the noblest emotions has lost the 
out of his being. Knowledge may fail to en- 
lighten, argument may fail to convince. — we 
can only drop a tear and pass on. He has 
the help of personalities, he has the help of hu- 
manity, he has the help of books, he has 
help of communing with nature, and with all 



THE BEST LIFE. 31 

these aids he can come into the best life open 
to him. But it is a life less worthy than the 
best which is open to some other men. Reli- 
gion gives a sky. Religion removes life from 
limitations, removes limitations from life, lifts 
from the spaces into space, from the times into 
time. Whoever accepts its truth of truths 
and its love seems to become one with the 
glorious company of the apostles of every age 
and clime. He is made an associate in the 
goodly fellowship of the prophets who have 
spoken truth and wrought righteousness. He 
lives the cathedral life, into which are poured 
the prayers and deeds of saintly and strong souls, 
whose aspirations are as spires and towers, 
that, if beginning in the earth, point skyward, 
and whose strength is as a buttressed wall. 

For us, teachers and students, this life of 
truth and love is more easily open than to 
some other men. We are searching for the 
truth in love. We are holding the truth in 
love. We are speaking the truth in love. 
Happy those men whose professional work 



32 THE BEST LIFE. 

leads them into those paths which are of the 
highest personal pleasantness. Herein duty is 
its own sweetness. The honeycomb of toil 
carries its own nectar in its own well-wrought 
cell. As a means to this best life, personal- 
ity begets to itself dignity and sweetness; hu- 
manity becomes of unwonted but fitting worth ; 
the book in its service becomes persuasive and 
vital; nature in star and sun and "crimson- 
tipped flower" takes on divine relations; reli- 
gion becomes human in this the highest quest : 
all life itself ministers unto the bettering of 
each life. It is thus that at last comes to pass 
a condition which Saint Augustine interprets 
in a paragraph quoted by Mr. Matthew Ar- 
nold in a famous essay: "For the old order 
is passed, and the new arises ; the night is 
spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt 
crown the year with thy blessing, when thou 
shalt send forth laborers into the harvest sown 
by other hands than theirs; when thou shalt 
send forth new laborers to new seed-times, 
whereof the harvest shall not be yet." 



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